Hello Jack
by Sat-Isis
Summary: Jack Sparrow is dead, but not gone, savvy? An AU of DMC & AWE from the perspective of James Norrington. After he violently acquires the Black Pearl, James Norrington must navigate the dark waters of survival while still trying to be an honorable man.
1. Chapter 1: Patience is a Virtue

Authoress Notes:

This is the first chapter of an epic fic that Tracy and I have been working on for over a year. It represents a complete rewrite of DMC and AWE in the context of an alternative universe. Basically, we feel that James Norrington got the short end of the stick as well as character assassination of the most dubious kind. Some of you may be familiar with the general story as you may have read the spoilers "A Bit of Fun" and "Digging Up Jack" - however this really shouldn't ruin any of the fun. Eventually every character will come into play as James Norrington takes the lead throughout DMC and AWE navigating the waters between surviving and still trying to be an honorable man.

* * *

><p>Chapter 1: Patience is a Virtue<p>

* * *

><p>Patience is a virtue; he had none, but there was nothing to do but wait. He waited like a concubine in a seraglio; the hours stretching into days stretching into months. The only things still clean were the sweet sharpness of his blade and the cold shine of his pistol. This place stank while his reek was only a little less noisome. The boots he was wearing were not his own; he had taken them off a decomposing corpse in a filthy, forgotten alley after he had pawned his own silver buckled shoes. Sometimes it felt as though he had not cleaned all the maggots out of the squishy insoles. <em>I am not dead yet<em>, he said to himself, _not yet_.

"-Jack Sparrow-" a voice came out of the crowd of noise to prick his ears, a hound catching the scent of the fox. Instantly attentive, he sprang out of his miasma and strode towards the man who had uttered the name. Eavesdropping on the conversation, he learned that Sparrow was over at the _Faithful Bride_ recruiting for some such adventure that only a mad fool would attempt. This bit of intelligence might not be true, it had happened before, but he stomped on his tingle of excitement as he left the sweltering of the _King's Arm_ tavern for another. The sweat that trickled from him smelled like revenge cooked with the sticky, sweet scent of shite, death, and rum.

Sliding into the _Faithful Bride_ as two wretches staggered out, he kept to the wall and a lookout for Sparrow. A flicker of recognition and he saw someone he knew from long ago and not far behind him was the man he had been waiting to show up for a very long time. A vicious sneer ripped uncontrolled across his face. Joining the queue, he waited for his revenge a few moments longer. Fingering his pistol he thought about the release this would bring him. No honor, no justice; he was too far gone for that. Stepping up to the table, the fat man asked him, "And what is your story?" The drunkard did not recognize him, although it was not right to call him a drunkard; he was one now too.

"My story?" he pondered aloud, his voice gravelly to his own ears from disuse, wondering if he should even bother. Oh, but it would give him such satisfaction knowing that Sparrow would know just before he died. "It is exactly the same as your story, merely one chapter behind. I hunted a man across the seven seas. The pursuit cost me my crew, my commission, and my life." He snatched a bottle off the table to ease the hoarseness of his throat; there was rum in the bottle. "Commodore?" the man asked with incredulity. "No, not anymore!" the former Commodore snarled at the pirate, "Why are you not listening?"

He slammed the bottle down on the table, angered to reveal such things, such important things, and the man was not even listening to him! Dear God, had the mutiny marked him so badly that even this turncoat of a navy man could see it? Looming over the man he spat out, "I nearly had you all off Tripoli. I would have too, were it not for the white squall." "Lord!" the fat man sat back in shock, "You didn't try to sail through it?" There was Sparrow, hiding in the corner behind a potted plant, looking to make another quick escape. Keeping his eyes on the pirate he sneered and kicked over the table and pulled his pistol. Sparrow stopped in his tracks, holding his stick of greenery like a shield.

"Hello, Jack," He smiled, cocking his pistol. "Easy, now!" the fat pirate pushed the toppled table off him, "That's our captain you're threatening!" He fired, at this distance he did not need to aim, and Jack Sparrow fell like a toppled tree. It was as though the sails of his soul filled with wind for the first time after a long becalm and his feet could no longer feel the floorboards in his elation. He could not hear the absolute silence in the tavern, it was as though his shot had been made by a cannon and he was momentarily struck deaf. "JACK!" a voice screamed out and it pierced the fog of his ears with recognition. Turning, he saw her at the forefront of the patrons.

"Elizabeth?" he breathed and suddenly his feet found the floor and it felt as though he had stumbled onto a lurching deck. He would know her anywhere, even with her hair shorn and her lad's breeches. Elizabeth was not looking at him, she was looking at Jack in horror. He thought he would never see her again. "Elizabeth," he dropped the bottle and he reached out to her. Screaming, she flinched away from him and he knew then that she did not recognize him. Letting his hand drop, he felt the wind leave his sails, he never wanted her to see this. "Oh, James, what have you done?" Elizabeth finally recognized him. James Norrington realized that he had done a terrible thing.


	2. Chapter 2: You Missed Me

Jack Sparrow lay still for a moment and enjoyed the shocked silence of the patrons of the Faithful Bride. Let everyone worry just a bit that he was dead. Let them all wring their hands over the thought of it, most especially that stinky Norrington – and Lord, did he smell! He smelled worse than Gibbs when he slept with the pigs. Ah, Gibbs, he would be terribly upset at Jack's little charade, but they would laugh about it over a pint later, perhaps after Jack had a piece of that tasty young lad that had cried out his name after he tumbled to the floor. Jack peeped his eyes open to look about; Norrington had his back to him. Now was the time, he sat up abruptly and chimed, "You missed me!"

The young lad screamed and Norrington slumped a bit as though the wind had been knocked out of his sails. Jack sprang to his feet and said in a singsong voice, "Y can't keep ol' Jackie down, mate!" Then the lad was rushing towards him and he say that it was no lad, but bonny Miss Elizabeth Swann dressed as a lad. "Hide the rum!" he said in a stage whisper to Gibbs and opened his arms to her, "Those clothes don't suit you, my dear, it should be a dress or nothing. I happen to not be in possession of a dress…" Jack petered off as Elizabeth fell to his feet and crouched over the stalk of greenery. "I take it back; those breeches do suit you," Jack said as he looked down at her bum.

"He's dead!" Elizabeth gasped. "I know," Norrington replied and Gibbs hollered, "Lord! No!" Jack rolled his eyes, "Yes, and we shall hold a wake for the shrubbery. He was a good bit of plant: verdant, tall, decorous, given to housing voracious insects-" Jack stopped dead. Literally. As he had motioned down to the plant he found himself looking at himself of the floor. Dead. "That's interesting," he said in a deadpan voice. And then all hell broke loose, and for Tortuga standards that was saying something. The crowd had transformed into a riotous mob without any of its fun-loving, raucous ways and they were crying out for James Norrington's blood.

"He jus' killt Capt. Jack!" - "'E still owes me money!" - "String the blaggard up!" were the cries from the crowd. Someone smashed a bottle over Norrington's head and he went down on hands and knees. Elizabeth was screaming in terror, trying to reach him through the mob. Whores clawed their hands and tore at him, scallywags put their boots to him, and through it all James Norrington did not defend himself. Jack was oblivious to this as he tried to reenter his body by laying down on the floor, by jumping into it, and was having no luck. "Bugger, bugger, bugger!" Jack muttered to himself. It was quite and he realized he was quite alone in the tavern; the mob had spilled outside into the streets.

"FOR GOD'S SAKE! WHO LEAVES A DEAD MAN ALL BY HIS LONESOM IN A TAVERN?' he roared to backs of those in the mob. Not that they could hear him. Jack waved goodbye to his body and sauntered out the doors that had been broken when then mob had carried Norrington through them as though he were a battering ram. Jack saw that the noise of the mob was attracting other from out of their hovels, whorehouses, and taverns. The mob swelled as it came closer to the town's square. A hanging in Tortuga was a rare and wondrous treat for the locals. Really, Jack was quite curious to see how this was all going to turn out.

* * *

><p>The mob had regained some of its jovial nature as a makeshift gallows had been erected with the help of a tall tavern sign that stuck out over the road, a platform of empty barrels, and an old mare. "JAMES!" Elizabeth screamed and Gibbs tried to yell over the crowd, "You can't kill him, by God! It's against the Code!" "Gibbs!" Elizabeth's shrill voice pierced his ear, "Make them stop, Gibbs!" Gibbs winced and pressing his pistol into her hand, he yelled at her, "I'll get you up there; you hold them off! I'll need to get the Gov'nor!" "WHAT?" Elizabeth shrilled, thinking Gibbs meant to retrieve her father, but already he was pushing through the crowd like a wedge and dragging her in his wake.<p>

Gibbs thrust her upon the rickety balance of barrels and crashed through the crowd the way he had come. She stood frozen for a moment looking at the faces twisted into horrid glee all around her. James sat on the back of the mare, his wrists tied behind his back, his head bowed, and the noose sitting thickly around his neck. Two men were trying to fly the end of the rope over the sign's brackets; they would have had better luck had they done that first and then put the noose around Norrington's neck. Not that Elizabeth was going to tell them that. "HERE! Give it to me, fools!" she hollered at them and when they looked at her as a young lad and refused to comply, she raised her pistol at them.

The men, in various stages of tooth loss, grimaced at her and threw her the rope. Elizabeth caught it with her free hand and held on to it tight. The crowd saw this and pressed forward maliciously; they drew back when she turned her muzzle in a sweep along their numbers. Again and again the mob swelled like a tide, only to recede at the swish of her pistol. All the while she shouted, "According to the Code of the Brethren, set down by the pirates Morgan and Bartholomew, article eight states that every man's quarrel is to be ended on shore, at sword and pistol!" A fat, old whore scream up at her, spittle flying from broken teeth, "Shut yer gob, ye dammed sea-lawyer!"

A joyous shout rumbled up through the mob as the whore picked up a hank of steamy manure and lobbed it at Elizabeth. She dodged the manure and it struck the wall behind her. Soon the entire crowd was lobbing anything and everything at the sea-lawyer lad and the dead man on the horse: stones, refuse, buckets of sour urine, pig shite, and other unmentionable projectiles. Elizabeth screamed in disgust as she was lobbed with something sticky. Norrington sat listless on the prancing mare as though he was not even there and when the horse reared up to slice her hooves at the crowd he tumbled off her back and landed in the gathering pile of refuse underneath the tavern's eaves.


End file.
